While the majority of the TED Fellows headed to TED2013 to give talks on their incredible work, a smaller group headed to TEDActive, representing the program while embedded in the Palm Springs action. Artist Colleen Flanigan was among them, and created this adorable, Scrabble-themed animation to represent the Fellows there with her. Here’s what she had to say about the work:

“While at TED Active, I found my way into The Study, a place to explore TED-Ed. I had so much fun playing with iStopMotion that I wanted to make something for the Late Night with the Fellows, a short looping intro on the monitor at the House of Design at the La Quinta Resort.

During the last session on Wednesday, I stayed in The Study and cut out little construction paper symbols to represent each of the fabulous Fellows here this week. It was a quick attempt at portraying a tiny bit of what they do for their work. For example, Esther Chae is on an arrow since she created and performs the dramatic So the Arrow Flies, about a Korean spy, and David Gurman is on a bell as he created an installation art piece, Nicholas Shadow, in which a church bell tolled to mark the death of innocent civilians during the war in Iraq.

All the members of the TED-Ed team are incredibly fun and talented; they helped me set up the area to create a short animation sequence for the evening. I spent a couple peaceful playful hours moving things around. After years of making armatures for stop-motion puppets, it was liberating to actually experiment with capturing the movement and witness with wonder the linking shots.

Jehane Noujaim wishes for a global day of film

Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim — who won the TED Prize in 2006 and wished for a global day of film — seeks to tell the story of these protestors in her new documentary, The Square. The film combines the shocking and powerful footage taken by the protestors themselves, along with Noujaim’s interviews. The Square premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday and received a standing ovation. It is in the running for the film festival’s World Cinema Documentary Competition.

But Noujaim does not want The Square to be a closed book. She has taken to Kickstarter to raise funds to finish the film.

“The Square is a film about a group of young Egyptians brought together by a revolution, and who — together — find a new sense of hope for their country … [But] two years in, the revolution is far from over,” the Kickstarter page explains. “We are asking you, the Kickstarter community, to help finish our film. There are so many ways we want to make sure this film really comes to life after it debuts at Sundance … in Egypt, in the USA, and really around the world … Bunker Roy: Learning from a barefoot movementAt this very moment our team members are on the ground in Egypt, continuing to capture footage of history as it unfolds — to be included in the final final edit of the film. We  wrapped up our Sundance edit only days ago, but we have more work to do. Your funding will help.”

The Square isn’t the only film of Noujaim’s to show at Sundance this year. Her documentary Rafea: Solar Mama is showing as a part of the festival’s “Stories of Change” program this week. This film follows a Jordanian woman who attends Bunker Roy’s revolutionary Barefoot College in India, the subject of his 2011 TED Talk.

“It imprinted on him like a mommy duck does on its duckling,” says Stokes. “I wonder what he’s soaking in. Is he picking up on the themes of courage and perseverance and loyalty? Is he picking up on the fact that Luke joins an army to overthrow the government? Is he picking up on the fact that there are only boys in the universe besides Aunt Beru and the princess … who waits around through most of the movie so that she can reward the hero with a medal and a wink?”

In today’s talk, filmed at TEDxBeaconStreet, Stokes takes a look at the messages kids might tease from classic movies like The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. Stokes says that he feels far more comfortable with Dorothy’s message than with Luke Skywalker’s. He wishes more films championed the ideals that violence isn’t the answer, that goals can be achieved by kindness and that women can be both powerful and wise.

“Why is there so much Force in the movies we show our kids and so little Yellow Brick Road?” Stokes asks.

In his talk, Stokes shares that he uses the Bechdel test, created by Alison Bechdel in 1985, to determine if a kids’ movie is good to share with his children. The test involves asking three questions: (1) Does a movie have more than one woman in it? (2) Do they talk to each other? (3) Is their conversation about something other than a guy?

Stokes believes that the messages in movies do matter, and wonders: could this be one issue at the root of why there are so many sexual assaults in the United States?

“When I hear the statistics, I think, ‘That’s a lot of sexual assailants. Who are these guys? What are they failing to learn?’” says Stokes. “Are they absorbing the story that a male hero’s job is to defeat the villain with violence and then collect the reward, which is a woman who has no friends and doesn’t speak? Are we soaking up that story?”

To hear Stokes plea for dads to show their sons movies with broader definitions of manhood, watch his moving talk. And after the jump, Stokes — who writes the hilarious and insightful media blog, Zoom Out — unpacks the messages he sees in more movies that are favorites for kids.

Writes Stokes:

Plenty of excellent movies fail the Bechdel Test, or imply that heroism is equivalent to a boy becoming a man. Yes, there’s plenty to enjoy and admire in these movies, but if you’re looking for something that shows your children a wider world — and gives your son a wider range of role models — load up some of the masterpieces that push the formulas to more inclusive places:

Movie formula: The Quest

Typical Version: A boy’s world is threatened by an evil male force. He must train and mobilize other boys to defeat the enemy in a violent conflict. There is essentially one female, who is granted to the hero as a prize.

Examples: Star Wars, The Hobbit, The Lion King

Enlightened version: A boy or girl (or team) seeks to heal an injustice in the world. They must make friends who share their goal to change the culture of an older generation, by modeling a better way.

Examples: The Wizard of Oz, The Muppet Movie, The Dark Crystal, Castle in the Sky (Japan), Spy Kids 1 & 2, , Tangled

Movie formula: Finding a Purpose

Typical Version: A boy finds his place among men through mastery of a skill, understanding of competition and teamwork, and/or moving up in the male hierarchy. There is essentially one female, who is granted to the hero as a prize.

Examples: A Bug’s Life, Cars, Ratatouille

Enlightened Version: A boy or girl finds his or her place in a diverse society through self-knowledge and the application of skills to communal goals.

Examples: Kiki’s Delivery Service (Japan), Babe, Stuart Little 1 & 2

Movie formula: The Secret Alien

Typical Version: A young boy comes into contact with a being seen as dangerous by the adult male world, and  moves up in the male hierarchy by using the being against shared enemies.

Examples: Iron Giant, How To Train Your Dragon

Enlightened Version: A boy or girl comes into contact with a being seen as dangerous by diverse adult world, and re-orders the world’s assumptions in the act of stewarding it to safety.

Examples: E.T., Lilo & Stitch, Monsters Inc., Secret World of Arrietty (Japan)

Do you think Stokes was too hard on Princess Leia in his talk? He agrees and has issued an official apology. He writes:

A commenter or two has pointed out I was too hard on Princess Leia in my TEDx Talk. I dismissed her as someone who “sits around for the whole movie so she can give the hero a wink and a medal for saving the universe.” While it’s true that the Star Wars galaxy of the original films is Tolkien-like in its gender ratios, I was wrong to throw the leader of the Alliance under the galactic bus.

Check it out the rest of his apology on his blog » 

And another great resource if you’re interested in the portrayal of gender in kids’ movies: the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which this year published an impressive report on the stereotypes of women in film » 

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the contenders for Best Picture this morning, we noticed two familiar faces in the field. We were pleased to see the stylish thriller Argo among the nominees, as director Ben Affleck shared with us the “8 TED Talks that amazed me” in the fall. We were also excited to see that Beasts of the Southern Wild, executive produced by longtime TED community member Philipp Engelhorn, got a Best Picture nod. A visually stunning film with an 8-year-old star (who this morning became the youngest Best Actress nominee ever), Beasts tells the story of a fantasty America where a levee divides Louisiana from flood land, but many choose to live their lives past its reach. It’s a beautiful, powerful and truly creative film.

Congratulations to all the filmmakers behind Argo and Beasts, as well as to those who created fellow nominees Amour, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty and Les Miserables.

And we’d like to thank the Academy for this TED Talk.

A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and former senior vice president of marketing and communications at Sony Pictures, Levy has always been fascinated by the sleights of hand that filmmakers use to create illusions. And he knows he is far from alone. In the 117 years since the Lumière Brothers terrified audiences with their Train Pulling Into a Station (1896), Levy explores how visual effects have evolved.

“With complete control of everything the audience can see, movie makers have created an arsenal of techniques to further their deceptions,” says Levy. “Playing with the world and our perception of it really is the essence of visual effects.”

But Levy knows that words cannot capture the goosebump-raising experience of seeing something wonderful on a big screen. So, with the help of the Academy, he created an exclusive video for TED showing the evolution of effects. This thrilling montage pairs similar clips from different points in the history of film — George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902) compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968’s Academy Award winner for Visual Effects) and Avatar (Visual Effects Oscar winner in 2009), and the crowd scenes of Ben Hur (1925) contrasted with those in Gladiator (which won the 2000 Oscar for Visual Effects).

Watch Levy’s talk, which is a feast for the eyes and imagination. Here, see eight more talks about movie magic.

With Popcorn Maker, you can choose a YouTube video and add notes, live links, Twitter feeds, photos, links out to Wikipedia … all within the video window. And all the editing takes place within your own web browser — no special software needed.

Jump in and play: Popcorn Maker. Or read more about the launch on the Mozilla Festival blog. (Follow tweets at #mozfest.)

We’ve been experimenting with Popcorn Maker here at TED; you can see below what the Mozilla team did to add lots and lots of data to Beau Lotto and Amy O’Toole’s recent TEDTalk:

In the TED Blog comments, Ricardo Calil shared an elegant way to refine the user experience, by adding pauses to take in the new information. In the short clip below, he shows two techniques for using pauses:

What would you do? Share your work in the comments …

Popcorn Maker is part of Mozilla’s inspiring Webmaker program, which hopes to help build the next generation of creators on the web — from making simple web pages with Thimble to fooling around with code using X-Ray Goggles.

You’ve accomplished a huge amount for one so young. It probably helped that you grew up surrounded by a family of artists and musicians.

My family were always inclined towards performing and creative arts. My great-grandfather was an ancient music scholar. He wrote many books on music theory. And he was a multi-instrumentalist. He played the violin and an Eastern instrument called the harmonium, and the sarangi. His daughter — my father’s mother — followed in his footsteps and became a performer of Eastern music. She was a stage performer, and also played many instruments. Her brother is a professional storyteller, spoken-word poet, and an actor as well. My father is also a musician and a stage performer. My mother’s an artist as well as a stage performer. My sister, who is three years younger than me, is also a musician, as are my cousins. So everybody does something or the other.

When I was young, it was really difficult to get people to pay attention to me. Whatever I would do, somebody else could do that too. But that really pushed me to try to get better; I always wanted to be on the same level as my cousins. But now I just do it for myself. When I was younger I was much more competitive. I’m very grateful to have had that sort of environment to grow up in because it really helped me develop my work, and work on being a perfectionist. I enjoyed it a lot.

Do you play music with your family?

Not too often anymore. But sometimes I sit down with my uncles, and they play a few things and I play with them, and it’s fun. Mostly I play on my own, because I grew up playing Western classical music. I started playing classical piano at the age of 6. I was always messing around with instruments. My grandmother told my parents that I should get classical music training, and so I starting taking classical piano. I’m still learning.

I picked up guitar when I was 16. It was really different from piano because classical music is very — I wouldn’t call it restrictive, but it has a lot of rules. So when I started playing electric guitar, that really opened up stuff for me. There were no rules: you could do whatever you wanted. That was fun. So now I don’t prefer either style. I love both. I love classical music and other forms of music. I love writing orchestra pieces. That’s my favorite thing to do.

How did you get your first recording contract?

I was 18. I was performing at one of the venues back home, and this person from EMI was there. They liked what I was doing. They said, “Would you like to come and record?” Nobody really does anything that is risky back home. Everybody’s so afraid because most of the musicians are pretty set in their ways. They don’t want to experiment. But EMI offered me a completely different way to work. They said, “We don’t really know what you’re doing and we don’t want to tell you what to do. Just go ahead and do whatever you want.” Which I loved. There was no manager. There was nobody. I was completely alone in the studio with a very, very good engineer, who would allow me to stand on his head and say, “I want it to sound like this, I want to change that.” There was no real producer either. I was in complete control, and I loved that. So for two years I was working on music, on and off — I wasn’t working every day. When I’d get an idea I would go to the studio and start on it. Or when I conceived of a particular sketch of a beat, I’d go to the studio and refine it. I had complete freedom, which I really enjoyed. And that helped me make all my orchestra pieces.

Before this happened, I was actually supposed to go to the Berklee College of Music. I even got an audition. I thought about it for a very long time and ultimately decided not to attend my audition, preferring to stay in Pakistan and record the music, get it out of my system. I’d been studying music for so long, and I had all these ideas that were building up inside, and I needed to get them out. While I was recording, I attended art school at the Indus Valley School of Arts and Architecture, studying illustration and fine art while working on recording my album, Circus in the Sky. I also took a minor in film and I learned how to manage everything for my films that I wanted to make. I didn’t want to waste time.

I’ve been doing art since I was small, so it wasn’t a problem for me to balance my painting and educational work with my music. I would finish everything in school and then go and work in the studio for seven or eight hours, recording my music, then go home and practice. It was a fun time.

Tell us about the different musical styles on Circus in the Sky.

There are 12 pieces on the album: guitar, piano and orchestra pieces. I love writing orchestra pieces, because it’s like a film. You can tell a story with it. With my guitar pieces, people get too wrapped up in the technique. They look at what I’m doing rather than what I’m playing. I’m okay with that, but I’d rather tell something with my music than have people say: “Wow, look at how he’s playing the guitar. That’s so different.” Honestly, it’s not very unique. I learned it from watching Preston Reed. Those who know the percussive style just see it as a variation of what others are doing. But people who are unfamiliar with that style of guitar playing are perhaps awed by it. I don’t really try to focus on technique or what I’m doing. I try to say something with the music.

That’s why I enjoy the orchestra pieces, because nobody sits there and goes, “Wow, look at how the violins are being played, and look at how the clarinets are being played.” They listen to it as a whole. So that’s what I want to do more of. Even my piano pieces, I start to do that. And the album actually tells a story from start to finish. Each piece borrows from the previous one and develops ideas from it — time signatures, rhythmic styles and everything — and it just builds up towards the end. I had quite a lot of fun working on that.

You were trained in classical piano, so how did you learn to write and arrange for orchestra?

Ever since I was small, my teacher always exposed me to orchestral music. Even when we’d talk about Mozart, he would say, “Yes, he was a brilliant piano player, but he wrote for orchestra.” And then we would listen to some of his orchestral pieces. We listened to Beethoven, Schubert. So I love that kind of music, and I love film scores. They amplify and accentuate so many things in film, all the emotions and the scenes.

Was the album well received by the critics in your country?

Oh, it really was well received actually. I’m very grateful that people are responding very well to it. I finished it just before I left for the TEDGlobal Conference — literally a week before. Everything was printed, the cover, the artwork, everything was ready. The final CD was done a week before I left. So it’s only been out for two months, and so far the reception has been very good.

And before that you also recorded a song called “Saeen.” From the video, it looks like you worked with a lot of musicians on it?

That piece was actually an adaptation of a song by a popular Pakistani music group called Junoon. They said, “We’d like you to do something with one of our pieces for our fifth anniversary album.” And I knew that song was really popular back home and in a few countries like Nepal and India. I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to live up to the original, so I just completely changed it and made it into a Middle Eastern orchestral piece. I replaced the vocals with a violin, creating a melody. I play almost every instrument, except for violin, on the recording, but I thought it would be pretty bland to have only me in the film. We decided to get a drum circle, and the violin player and I played in the middle of the drum circle. It was fun.

How many instruments do you play?

I’ve tried a lot of instruments. My main instruments are the piano and the guitar. But I can play the harmonica, the mandolin. I play the harmonium. I do percussion as well. I’m trained on a lot of things. It’s just fun to make sounds. I don’t really know how many instruments I play, but the ones I don’t, I really wish I could. I really, really wish I could play the violin because that’s my favorite instrument in the world. When I was younger I had a choice between the piano or the violin. I picked the piano, but I keep wondering what would have happened if I’d picked the violin.

Well, it’s not too late! You recently were in Florida, for the OneBeat fellowship, weren’t you?

Yes. OneBeat is a new initiative that was founded by the US State Department where they bring together musicians from all over the world for a bit over a month. The tagline for this tour was “32 musicians from 21 countries.” For a full month, we were together every day, and we had a two-week residency in Florida at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Daytona Beach before touring the East Coast for two and a half weeks. It was really cool because we were really cut off from everything else. It was just us and a few guards to keep watch — two weeks where we had to just make music and work on things.

I didn’t sleep much: all the time we’d be making music and working on different ideas and concepts and ideas and working on pieces for the shows that we’d be performing. Initially when we were all getting there, we didn’t know how all of us would gel, because there were musicians from all sorts of genres. There were Turkish musicians playing Turkish jazz and there were electronic musicians, country artists. I was the only classical musician probably.

We didn’t know how all of us would collaborate on something, because everybody was so different. But I remember, I was the first person who arrived, and the very next day I was sitting in one of the studios playing the grand piano. It was a really nice piano, and I was just practicing. And then slowly, one by one, all the musicians started coming in. We really didn’t talk much, we just all sat there. I was playing, then somebody joined me. And then another person walked in and they joined on their instrument. The percussionists walking by, they came in and started playing as well. It got to a point where all 32 of us were in that room, playing, and then the organizers also walked in, and it was a huge jam. It was a really magical moment. All of us were just playing. And we’d pause and let someone solo, and we’d pause again to let someone else solo. And that’s how we got to know each other.

Of all the fellows at TEDGlobal 2012, you seemed like the one the most affected by experience. And I was just wondering what was happening in your mind during that time, and how that’s unfolded in the last months since TEDGlobal.

TED was absolutely amazing. I think it’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had. I’d been watching the TED videos as well. I saw Kaki King’s videos, and I watched a lot of Andrew Bird performing too. It was the one-man orchestra that he did. I watched so much TED, but I didn’t know anything about the Fellows program. So when I got that email it was so surreal to me. I didn’t know something like that was there for people like me. And I didn’t even know I’d be eligible for it. I felt so grateful to be selected.

When I got to TED it was really a dream come true to be there. I love that sort of environment. OneBeat was great, but it was just music. TED is everything. And I love that, because I try to do bits of everything. I try to make my films as well, and music. So to be in that sort of environment was incredible. Everybody does everything, and there was so much to learn. And all the Fellows were amazing too. I don’t know how to describe it. I wish it hadn’t ended. I didn’t want to leave that environment because it fuels, I think, everybody’s creativity. And then, of course, I got to play with Preston Reed, which is something I’ll never forget. He has a particular way of standing — because he has long hair, he has to let the hair down his right side so it doesn’t get in the way of his eyes when he’s playing. And he always sticks his hair down his right shoulder and leans a bit towards his right side to play with his head tilted. It was such a thrill to be sitting onstage with him and watch him do that exact same move before he started playing. It was just amazing.

Has the experience settled into you, and has it informed the way that you have worked since then?

I still wish it hadn’t ended, but I have more time to reflect on it. It really has affected how I work. It’s made me a lot calmer. Before, I thought that my work wouldn’t lead to anything. And I think it’s given me a bit of a boost, because now I feel like I’m on my way to accomplishing something. And I got to be on that stage, which makes me really happy. I want to do more now, but it’s made me believe in myself a bit more.

What are you fantasizing about doing that you haven’t done yet?

What I really want to do is just keep on learning. And thanks to all the opportunities that have opened up with TED, I am in a position to do that — learn things that I normally wouldn’t have been able to. Not just in music; I’ve been in touch with all these people who, if everything works out, allow me to be in a position where I can do things that I thought weren’t possible before. I’ll be able to make more music, more experimental music, more experimental art, meet people who are doing things like that. And even opportunities for music schools — I know that.

In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim made her TED Prize wish: that for one day, the world would band together for the shared experience of watching film. “As the world is getting smaller,” she said onstage, “it becomes more and more important that we learn each other’s dance moves, that we meet each other, that we get to know each other, that we are able to figure out a way to cross borders, to understand each other.”

Now, Noujaim’s newest film, Solar Mamas, follows Rafea, a Jordanian woman who attends the revolutionary Barefoot College in India.

As the school’s founder, Bunker Roy, explained in his 2011 TEDTalk, “Learning from a barefoot movement,” the college teaches rural women and men – many of them illiterate — to become engineers, artisans and doctors. There are only two rules for enrollment — you must be poor to attend and you must take your learnings home to your village. Rafea is chosen, along with 26 other mothers and grandmothers, to get a free education in solar engineering.

But while Solar Mamas gives an insider’s glimpse at Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College, it also examines a bigger question: “Are women better at getting out of poverty than men?”

Solar Mamas is part of “Why Poverty?,” a multimedia film festival featuring 30 short and 8 full-length movies from filmmakers across the globe. Produced by the nonprofit Steps International and funded in part by the Gates Foundation and Skoll Foundation, the series will air on TV channels around the world, as well as online, with the goal of reaching 500 million people.

“Why Poverty?” short films are being released all through November. Meanwhile, the initiative’s eight longer offerings will air beginning on November 25. Check WhyPoverty.net for the broadcast schedule to see when Solar Mamas is playing in your country.

Watch Christoph Adami’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.

Watch Jarreth Merz’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.